Friday, January 16, 2009

Overpowered

Is there a name for the phenomenon in which you do just fine for a long period of time without a certain not-entirely-necessary Gizmo Thing but then you order it and in the time it takes between the ordering and the arrival of the Gizmo Thing you have 57 different experiences that make you realize how inadequate and/or difficult your life is without this thing? The wait of 1-5 days for the new gizmo thing to arrive becomes unbearably long. You are incapacitated until it arrives. How did you live without it?

A relative chronology to illustrate this phenomenon:

1 - I carry my laptop power cord with me everywhere in case I need to plug my laptop in at the office, at home, on a trip, in a cafe etc.

2 - I forget the power cord more often with time. It is in my office but I am at home, or vice versa.

3 - My spouse has the same problem. At this point, we have two power cords between us, but sometimes we are both at home and we have no power cord. We also both have extra batteries, but those aren't necessarily where we want them and/or fully charged either.

4 - We get a home power cord and leave our other power cords in our respective offices except when traveling or at a cafe and except for the time when my husband took both the home and his office power cord on a trip with him by mistake and he absolutely refused to FedEx the extra one back to me even though he was away for nearly a week.

5 - The home power cord is constantly being moved -- upstairs, downstairs, by the couch, by the kitchen counter, and not by me. I never know where it will be.

6 - We order a second home power cord. In theory, one will always be near the Work Couch, which is where the cats insist that we sit when we are using our laptops. The other power cord can move around, maybe. I am sitting on the Work Couch now but I just had to go on a house search for the first home power cord because the second one has not yet arrived. Life will be much better when we have two power cords. I hope the new one arrives soon.

Where will it all end? I don't know the name for this phenomenon, but it may involve keywords such as impatient disorganized money-wasting American consumer slave.

We too don't have enough power cords at home but its normally mine at home rather than my MSP husband's. He thinks its a waste of money to own 2 home cords, even though he has plenty of grant money designated for computers and it would take a few minutes with his p-card to order one. It raises some interesting questions in the evenings about whose research is more important...and I don't always win.

I do this too. I have one power cord at the office, one at home, and one "floater" to carry around, since it is a hassle to have to move the one that is neatly tucked behind my desk. You two are lucky you have the same model laptop, otherwise you wouldn't even be able to share the one by the couch!

Until very recently, I had just 1 power cord for my laptop and this worked great because my laptop went wherever its cord went ALL THE TIME. I recently decided to leave one cord in my office and purchased one for home. I feel I am catching whatever bug it is you are suffering from, and I am sure something bad will happen soon, when I'll fly overseas and forget to pack a cord.

I am amazed that laptops do not come with a retractable cord, like a vacuum cleaner. Surely, there must be a technological cure for this desease.

I feel like I've seen a retractable cord for an apple laptop before, but maybe that was in my dreams. I don't seem to have the laptop cord syndrome but do have the cell phone charger syndrome. And now I have a second cell phone which is for work and that only has one charger :(

Well, you could name the affliction after me, who just ordered a webcam (I've the only recent laptop that doesn't have one in the lid) because a collaborator insisted that Skype would be useful for teleconferencing among the partners on our grant, and I tried to get it shipped express, only to not have it arrive before the end of the week. And I'll be on the road all next week, and could have used it to "call" home to the family... but I've lived a good number of years without one, and will survive.

I don't understand this at all. When I bring my laptop anywhere, it is in its laptop bag. There is a compartment in the laptop bag for the power cord/adaptor. When I unplug the laptop to put it in the laptop bag, I put the power cord/adaptor in the compartment. The laptop and its power cord are always together.

But that's because you are organized and not forgetful. I kept forgetting to unplug the powercord in my office and bring it home with my laptop. The laptop isn't always plugged in, so it's not always with its powercord. My acquisition of large numbers of powercords is (in part) a symptom of my absent-mindedness.

I have one power cord for my computer; husband has one for his. In this case it's fortunate that we don't have the same kind of computer - no possibility of using the other power cord. And I rarely use the thing without plugging it in, so am pretty aware of the cord. I'm not sure what the trade-offs are on electricity v. charging batteries. And batteries wear out (I know from previous experience!).

I *do* have scissors and trash cans in all imaginable spots so I don't have to walk everywhere all over the house to find one. That always includes one "hidden" pair of scissors - otherwise they all disappear when I am not around!

I have two adapters for my MacBook- one at home and one at my office. If I have to use my computer for more than 2 hours somewhere else, I bring the cord from whichever place I departed from (i.e. if I'm leaving from my office to work at the museum, I bring that one. If I'm going to DC for the inauguration, I bring the one from home). In general though I try not to bring an adapter everywhere if I know I'm plugging in later. Seriously people, that's why I have a laptop. I exercise my battery power.

What complicates things is that my partner has an older ibook, so our power cords are partially compatible. We can use the same "tail" or "2-prong" but use separate adapters. I do find it very helpful to have extra "tails" around.

About Me

I am a full professor in a physical sciences field at a large research university. I am married and have a teenaged daughter.
I have the greatest job in the world, but this will not stop me from noting some of the more puzzling and stressful aspects of my career as a science professor.
E-mail (can't promise to reply): femalescienceprofessor@gmail.com